Covid and life expectancy, here’s how it has changed after the pandemic

In just 2 years The Covid-19 pandemic has erased a decade of progress in the life expectancy of the planet’s population. This is the shocking data that emerges from the World Health Statistics 2024 report of the World Health Organization: “Between 2019 and 2021 – we read in the report – global life expectancy was reduced by 1.8 years, falling to 71.4 years” or “to 2012 levels. Healthy life expectancy decreased by 1.5 years to 61.9 years, still “the 2012 level”.

The Sars-CoV-2 emergency “has reversed the trend of constant increase in life expectancy at birth and life expectancy in good health”, notes the WHO. An effect that has hit even more seriously in 2 of the 6 regions into which the Geneva agency divides the world map: “The Americas and Southeast Asia were the hardest hitwith a decline in life expectancy of approximately 3 years between 2019 and 2021″ and an erosion “of healthy life expectancy by 2.5 years”. In contrast, “the Western Pacific region has been minimally affected during the first 2 years of the pandemic, with losses of less than 0.1 year in life expectancy and 0.2 year in healthy life expectancy.”

13 million deaths in 2 years

Sars-CoV-2 disease ranked as “the third leading cause of death in 2020 and the second in 2021. During this period, nearly 13 million human lives were lost on the planet., writes the WHO. And the director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to relaunch an appeal in view of the World Health Assembly (27 May-1 June): launch the Pandemic Agreement.

“The latest estimates – we read in the report – indicate that, with the exception of the” WHO “regions of Africa and the Western Pacific, Covid-19 was among the top 5 causes of death, becoming in both years” 2020 and 2021 “the leading cause of death in the Americas.”

“Major advances continue to occur in global health, with billions of people enjoying better health, better access to services and better protection from health emergencies,” says DG Tedros. “But we must remember how fragile this progress can be,” he warns. In just 2 years,” from 2019 to 2021, “the Covid pandemic erased a decade of improvements in life expectancy. This is why the new Pandemic Agreement is so important: not only to strengthen global health security – underlines the summit of the UN health agency – but to protect long-term investments in healthcare and promote equity between countries and abroad. inside them”.